Partners In Crime
by NicktheDragon
Summary: ZimXGaz. Gaz hates humans, just can't stand them anymore. Zim is missing from skool, making Dib more annoying than usual. What will happen?  Set in future in high skool .
1. Chapter 1

Partners In Crime

Ch.1

Author's notes: Well I just finished watching this show all the way through for the second time and I found the ending a bit lacking. I thought that they deserved a better conclusion, and what better to do that than a story of triumph and budding romance?

Set much later in time, I'm trying to stick to what I saw on the show and making up as little as I can while still making this interesting.

I thank all those writers before me who gave me inspiration for many parts of this story.

Of course Invader Zim doesn't belong to me, if it did, it wouldn't have been nearly as good.

On to the story!

For once, Gaz was glad that skool had started again. The summer between Dib and Zim's 11th and 12th grade years had been full of their usual mischief, though Dib had been particularly annoying.

She took her seat in the back of the room, opened the textbook for that particular class, and silently worked away at her GameSlave under the table. Around her other people chattered, popular girls gossiped and giggled at the jocks, who jousted for their attention like some bizarre mating ritual. She growled softly, doing her best to block out the irritating noise. Three classes passed in much the same manner and Gaz found herself once again in the company of her brother at the lunch table.

"Hey, where's Zim?" Dib proclaimed rather loudly.

Gaz growled and sunk her head closer to her game.

"I bet he's hatching some sort of evil alien plan to take over the planet again! Or some weird mind-controlling device, or, or…"

Gaz swiftly stuffed a pair of ear buds in her ears and cranked up the volume on her GameSlave. It sometimes was nearly enough to drown out that voice which made her want to strangle her older brother. This time though, it wasn't working well enough and she began to twitch uncontrollably as Dib unconsciously babbled on.

"… I have to stop him!" was the final cry as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.

Mustering all her willpower, Gaz managed to walk out of there without killing anyone and make it through the next two classes. On the way to her last class, the skool bully bumped into her in the hallway. She watched in horror as her GameSlave went skidding across the floor.

"Hey, watch where you're going, creep!" He jabbed a nail-bitten finger into her personal space. That was it. She could not stand to be around any stupid human right then, especially Dib.

"Shut… up!" The tone with which she said those two words sent a wave of fear across the hallway. Everyone but the oblivious jock became silent and backed off without any sudden movements. It was too late for the bully kid. His eyes barely had time to widen in fear before Gaz's fist connected with his face, pounding him into the lockers before he slid unconscious to the floor, a small trickle of blood seeping out his nose.

Nobody said a thing as Gaz wiped her hand on her black dress, collected her GameSlave from the floor, and walked calmly out of the building.

Gaz hated Dib, hated the kids at school, she took a glance at the cheery sunlight and decided she hated that too. Her feet automatically started the trek towards home, but after a few blocks she stopped. A man walking by gave her a wide berth, eyeing the strange purple-haired teen with caution. A leaf drifted by.

Why would she go home? Soon Dib would be out of skool and up to his stupid plans to spy on Zim or catch Bigfoot in their garage. Where else would she go? Zim's base? No. No way.

She made up her mind and continued on her way home, planning to lock herself in her room and hope Dib will be content to bother Zim at skool tomorrow.

Two days later and Zim was still strangely absent, an empty table at lunch which Gaz had resorted to glaring at angrily as her brother continued to rant about all the things Zim could be planning to take over the world. He was especially annoying today and Gaz had had enough.

"… It must be something really horrific, Gaz, I tried to sneak into his base last night, but it was completely sealed off! His stupid robot wouldn't even open the door! How am I supposed to stop him if I can't find out what he's planning, huh? Huh?"

With no warning whatsoever, Gaz swiped out an arm and pushed Dib backwards onto the floor, where his head landed in a gelatinous mass of dropped cafeteria food.

"I hate you Dib." She spoke quietly, but at least half the students in the cafeteria had turned their heds to stare at Dib as he fell. Gaz once again got up and walked out of the skool, everyone stayed as still and silent as possible to avoid her wrath. She hid a small smirk while stepping out the doors, they knew their place.

This time she knew she could not go home and await the return of her idiot brother. Instead she made the decision to go to the one place her brother would hopefully not think to look for her, Zim's.

Standing outside his green and purple house-shaped lair, Gaz paused. Something was off. She took mental note as the bizarre lawn gnomes stood motionless as she walked up to the porch. The windows were blacked out and the place was dead silent. No birds, no squirrels, no screams of rage or crazy from within.

"Creepy." She whispered to herself before knocking on the door.

What seemed like several long minutes later, a cheerful-looking Gir opened the door.

"HI SCARY LADY!" He screamed, "WAFFLES!" Then the little robot ran shrieking back into the house, leaving the door open. Gaz peered inside before cautiously stepping through the threshold. No annoying alien in sight, weird. She shut the door behind her. Turning towards the kitched, she watched for a moment as Gir enthusiastically stirred a big bowl of what she hoped was waffle mix. The strange little mini-moose stared at her from its place floating above the table.

With still no sign of Zim, Gaz shrugged and plopped herself down on the sofa, taking out her GameSlave. A few hours later Gaz was bored. Gir hummed something tuneless and continued to stir batter.

"Gir, where's Zim?" She was beginning to get curious.

"Master's in the control room!" The robot replied cheerfully.

Gaz got up and walked over to the large trash can, but as soon as she lifted the lid a glowing red Gir zoomed over and stood on it.

"MASTER SAID NO INTRUDERS!" He ordered, glaring.

Gaz glared right back, "I want waffles when I'm done."

That seemed to do the trick as red eyes turned to blue and an ecstatic robot skipped back to the counter. Mini-moose watched silently. Gaz almost smiled before once again lifting the garbage can lid and climbing into the small elevator.

"Computer, control room."

Surprisingly, the elevator made no complaints and it was a smooth ride down to the lair's control center. Stepping out of the elevator, Gaz's eyes widened and her mouth fell open in shock.


	2. Chapter 2

PIC

Ch.2

The scene before her wasn't pretty. The huge computer screen was smashed on its side, surrounded by broken wires and tubes and various other now-unidentifiable objects. As Gaz stood rooted to the spot, several exposed wires sparked. What appeared to be emergency lighting made the smears and small pools of green blood stand out starkly against the ruined equipment. In the center of the chaos was Zim. Gaz moved cautiously towards the prone body. Over the years Zim had miraculously grown along with the rest of the Earth children. He was a few inches shorter than Dib, but about the same height as Gaz.

Now his body lay curled away from her on the floor, unmoving and seemingly dead. Antennae limp, no up and down motion of breathing. Gaz carefully skirted a small puddle of dried blood and crouched by the alien's head. This was not what she had been expecting. Who did this, she wondered as she slowly reached out a hand, hesitating slightly before pressing two fingers against his neck. No pulse. Withdrawing her hand, she ran her gaze over his closed eyes, eventually noticing his backpack lying on the ground several feet away.

She rose to retrieve it and rolled it around in her hands. There were two strange metal circles in the back, and with another look at Zim's body she found two matching circles on his back. She knelt behind him to get a better look, and upon closer inspection found that the metal was not attatched to his clothing like she had suspected, but was fused to the skin of his back. She took a moment to peer between the odd backpack and the alien before slowly bringing the item closer to his back, seeing what would happen.

Suddenly, when the pack was two inches away from the Irken, it sent out two tentacles and fused with him. Gaz jumped back in surprise and could only watch as the thing glowed and poke in a deep computer voice.

"Reactivation."

A loud zap and Zim's body lay smoking, still motionless. Then an antennae twitched.

She managed to control herself and stand before he slowly rolled over, groaned, and lifted himself up onto his hands and knees. He opened his eyes and spotted her.

"Gaz-human?"

His voice was tired and quiet, something that slightly disturbed her. She just stood, staring. What else could she do? The look in his large red eyes was one of pure confusion and anguish. That was new. She had never seen that emotion on the alien's face before, rage, glee, frustration, pain, even satisfaction once or twice, but never this soul-crushing anguish. She didn't have long to ponder it though because soon he had contorted his face into a mask of confusion and familiar distaste.

"How did you get in here?"

"Your dumb robot let me in."

"Really?" He didn't look too surprised.

"Yeah, I think he likes me or something. Whatever." She shrugged it off, "Come on, I'm bored and I have the need to beat someone at a video game."

Before Zim could think of any response, Gaz grabbed his arm and hauled him off to the elevator. He was completely silent the whole way back to the ground floor, antennas limp and body language hunched. Gaz observed this out of the corner of her eye and distantly wondered what had happened to the usually loud being.

"MASTER! Waffles looove yoouuu!" An ear-splittingly loud Gir greeted his friends with gusto and heaping plates of steaming waffles.

Gaz's stomach growled loudly and she dragged the zombie-like Zim over to the table, glad he seemed able to sit of his own accord. She watched him push bits of waffle around his plate as she munched down several of her own.

******linebreak*******

Half an hour later found Gaz, Zim, and Gir sitting on the couch. Gaz had managed to hook up her GameSlave to the TV and, with the help of the computer, had a two player game set up. Her opponent was decidedly lacking interest. Gir snoozed happily between the two in his dog costume.

As Zim fumbled and his game character lost yet another life, Gaz looked over at his listless form in irritation. Why wasn't he going on and on about winning the game or planetary conquest? Where was the shouting? The evil laughter? The spiting of all human kind?

Eventually Zim noticed Gaz had paused the game and was staring at him unnervingly. He stared back. She broke the silence.

"What was with all that downstairs anyway, why where you dead?"

"I don't want to talk about it." His answer was sharp and quiet as he looked away in shame.

She wanted an answer now, and what Gaz wants, Gaz gets. "What happened Zim?" Her voice spoke of irritation, something that would send any human into a fit of pants-wetting.

"Why'd you have to reactivate me HUH? I was doing just FINE until YOU came along, you STUPID HUMAN FEMALE!" Zim's outburst was unexpected and shocked Gaz into a silence long enough for Zim to get up and stalk halfway across the room, facing away with antennae plastered angrily to his head.

Gir woke up and clung to Gaz's side, shaking.

After several long seconds, Zim sighed. "I don't want to talk about it. Just leave Gaz-human." Then, after a pause, "Please."

He still refused to look at her as she got up and left a very confused Gir and a stiff looking alien, closing the door softly as she went.

"You need a HUG!" Gir clung to his master.

"Won't change anything Gir." He patted the robot on the head, stared at mini-moose, and slowly made his way to the control room. If he was going to stay activated he might as well clean up the place.

******linebreak********

"WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING ZIM?"

Everyone in the classroom, even those who had been asleep moments before, stared angrily at the loud big-headed teen who pointed accusingly at the very tired looking Zim who had just slumped into first period a few minutes late. The green boy shot him a venomous glare, but made no verbal response, instead turning towards the teacher and proceeding to ignore Dib.

Dib's eye twitched. Since when did the alien ignore him? Something diabolical was definitely going on. He ripped a page from his notebook and frantically wrote down a note, balled the paper up, and chucked it across the room to smack Zim in the side of his earless head. Zim winced as the bleached tree fibers made contact, but picked up the offending object and uncrumpled it.

Zim,

I know you're planning something horrible, but it won't work! I'll always stop you!

From Dib.

Zim glanced over the crude drawing of himself without a disguise, splayed open on an autopsy table. He raised an eyebrow, that is _not_ what his internal organs looked like. With a small "eh," he tossed the paper into the trash, earning another glare from Dib.

Dib angrily and suspiciously glared at Zim for the next two classes, and Gaz found him continuing this pattern at lunch. At least he was doing it quietly.

"You're not gonna get away with this ZIM!" Dib stood, shaking his fist and yelling across the cafeteria.

Gaz growled. Last night when she had gotten home late her brother had bombarded her with annoying questions and wouldn't leave her alone until she threatened to doom him. Her annoyance levels were beginning to rise again, maybe it hadn't ben such a good idea to reactivate Zim. She looked up from her GameSlave to briefly examine the alien across the room. He sat silently poking at the skool cafeteria food, which squirmed in discomfort around the tray. Dib sat back down beside her, muttering to himself. She clenched her fists and made another quick decision to join Zim at his much quieter table.

The whole cafeteria watched and gasped as the scary girl got up and trudged across the room to sit across from the second-most-unpopular student. Dib was shocked into silence, his jaw hung open and a small line of drool scooted down his chin. He remained like that for the rest of lunch.

Meanwhile, Zim had barely reacted to the new presence at what had become his table. He briefly suspected that Dib had sent her over to spy on him, but one glance at the horrified human told him this was not the case. Confusion set in, but he decided that not questioning the scary Dib-sister would be safer, for now at least.

*******linbreak*******

And so on it went for another week. Dib taunted and challenged Zim, who did his best to ignore the human male, once telling him that he wasn't planning anything, but of course Dib didn't believe him. Gaz put up with her brother talking to himself late into the night, and wished her dad would come home more often. The popular girls at skool teased and mocked her behind her back. They caller her unkind names, remarked on her plain black dress that reached her knees, her purple tights, and her spikey combat boots. They called her ugly, laughed at her somewhat less-developed chest, and glared warily at her purple hair. They feared her, but what they feared they hated and ridiculed. She hated them right back. An idiot boy once asked her out, she introduced him to the contents of the nearest garbage can. As another Friday rolled around, she could no longer stand being around her brother or her peers. The closest thing to a sanctuary she had was isolating herself with Zim during lunch, but she still had to listen to Dib yell across the room.

******linebreak*******

Now she sat at home in her room, grinding her teeth at the chattering of her brother explaining his next infiltration scheme to get into Zim's lair. In a silent fury, she rose from the couch and went upstairs to pack all the things she would need for a couple of days into a large backpack, came back down the stairs, and had closed the door before hearing Dib asking where she was going. She ignored him and walked through the neighbor's back yard to avoid Dib following easily.

Several minutes later found her once again on Zi'm doorstep. The gnomes eyed her warily, but did not attack as she knocked on the door. She was a little surprised when Zim himself answered in his human disguise, but showed no emotion. Zim on the other hand, had surprise and confusion written all over his face.

"What are you doing here Gaz-human?"

"My name's Gaz, not Gaz-human. I'm here because my stupid brother won't leave me alone."

Zim nodded in understanding and stepped away from the door.

Once situated on the purple couch and fending off a rambunctious Gir, Gaz took out her homework and did what was necessary to keep afloat in skool. Zim wandered back to the table where a half-read newspaper awaited him. He found reading about all the horrible things humans were doing to each other around the world a somewhat entertaining pastime.

"What are you reading?"

"GAH!" The Irken nearly fell out of his chair. He had not heard the human walk up behind him. "Do not DO that to Zim!" He clutched at his chest, willing his adrenaline down.

"Woos." Gaz smirked, "So?"

"Ah yes," His antennae perked up somewhat, "It seems that these 'Americans' are destroying much of this 'Pakistan' place."

"The Americans are us Zim, and yeah, it looks like the humans are doing a pretty good job of destroying each other all on their own huh?"

His antennae again drooped, "I suppose you are right, Gaz-human, but tell me, why do you seem to care so little for your own kind? How can you so easily turn your back on your own leaders?"

Gaz thought for a moment, staring into the contact-covered eyes of the alien. His body language told her that maybe he wasn't just asking her, but himself as well.

"I guess they've never done anything for me. The kids at skool hate me, my brother is the most irritating person on the planet, and my dad is never home. My 'leaders,'" she flashed quotation marks, "are idiots, who cares about them?"

Her small speech left Zim wondering. The day before skool started he had called the Tallest to tell them of his newest ingenious plan to take over this puny planet, but when he told them, they had laughed at him, Zim! He had been confused and hurt. They told him that he was a defect; that he had never been invader material, that they had sent him to Earth to die. What Dib's younger sister had found was the result of that information. He had been officially declared dead to the Irken Empire, apparently eight years ago. It had Killed him, knowing that those he had worshipped all his life were willing to throw him away like an empty snack bag. Gaz's answer made him realize that maybe he wasn't the only one who had been betrayed by their society. Maybe he had found a kindred spirit in this scary lower life form.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he screamed as something touched his head, jerking him from his thoughts.

"I'm removing your costume stupid," Gaz made another snatch at the black wig and managed to get the object off.

Zim responded with a pout, but pulled out his contacts before she could make a move towards them too. He would admit that his eyes felt better.

Gaz leaned in to his personal space, and he tried to back off, but sitting in the chair restricted his movements, "You're hiding something," she glared accusingly into his wide red eyes, "How come I found you dead in the wrecked control room?"

He attempted to avoid her gaze, but she grabbed the front of his uniform with a low growl, forcing his eyes back to the terrifying female. He could smell her not-unpleasant scent mixed with frustration. In a voice quivering with fear, he told her what happened. Her expression changed from harsh to blank, to maybe even a tad bit sympathetic. His eye contact averted in shame and was not forced back. Gaz let go and walked back to the TV, kneeling to install a game she had bought earlier that week. Zim watched silently.

"Scary lady gonna play a gaaame?" Gir announced his waking with a shout, followed by, "I'm MAKIN' POPCORN!" and laughed maniacally before pulling un-popped kernels from his head and eating them with gusto.

Zim cringed, but perked up his antennae as Gaz gave a light chuckle, a sound he had never heard from the gloomy human. He got up to join her on the couch and see what game it was.

"You are not laughing at Zim for being a defect?" he asked.

"It seriously explains a lot," she smirked, "but no." She paused and seemed to have a small internal struggle before saying in a quiet voice, "I was abandoned too."

Zim gazed in wonder at the human, "Your parental unit?"

"I don't want to talk about it." She echoed the familiar words. With the start up screen of the game, silence was once again dominant in the room. Zim cringed almost imperceptibly as the title of the game popped up, _Planetary Invasion2_, and Gaz tossed a controller into his lap.

The game turned out to be not so bad after all as they played characters taking over an alien planet. Zim was relieved that the aliens turned out to be hideous blue humanoids with tails and not little green men like to many of the bad B-movies Gir watched. Eventually he found himself enjoying it and actually made an effort to win. Gaz got him to order pizza and he didn't think to question her staying so late.

********linebreak*********

Hours later, Gaz finished the level with a much higher score. She made a small smile when Zim howled in anger, but he quickly got over his rage in order to pull an over-affectionate robot off his head. Then he popped the question she had dreaded.

"So… how long are you going to stay here?"

Suddenly, her shoes seemed really interesting. "I'm not sure. I don't want to go home with stupid _Dib_," she spat his name, "I think I'll just stay the night here."

It wasn't worded as a question, and Zim knew better than to respond to it as one, so he nodded. Then she surprised him with the most sincere smile he had ever seen from her. It was small, but it filled his innards with a strange sensation and made his antennae tingle. What was _that_? In confusion, he did the only thing he could think of, he shot up off the couch and bolted to the garbage can.

"I'VE GOT TO CHECK ON SOMETHING!"

Gaz blinked, she was not expecting that. Shrugging it off to another weird alien quirk, she resolved herself to spending a night on the couch. Sighing, she fell slowly asleep to the sight of Gir rolling around on the floor, humming a quiet tune.

********linebreak********

Down in his lab, Zim was frantically pacing back and forth in front of several various screens. Mini-moose hung back in the corner, observing silently.

"COMPUTER! Results of full body scan!" Zim ordered the slow machine.

"Analyzing… scan of Zim's systems complete; all bodily functions within normal range. Adrenaline slightly elevated."

"What about my squeedly-spooch?"

"Normal function."

"THAT CAN"T BE RIGHT!" he resumed pacing, "I could have sworn that only a few minutes ago it was all _weird_." He scratched his antennae, they had felt funny too, but had returned to normal shortly after entering the lab. He pondered the mystery on the way back up to the ground floor, where he found a sound-asleep Gaz on his sofa. He stared at her form for several seconds, humans sure were vulnerable in their sleep, he smirked. Gir had stopped rolling around on the floor and was snuggled in a blanket in the corner. Zim looked between the human and his robot and made a choice. As quietly s possible, he traded Gir the dog costume for the blanket, which after much gesticulating and a whispered threat later, resulted in Zim placing the planket over the sleeping young woman. His squeedly-spooch felt funny again.

"Computer," he narrowed his eyes and whispered, "scan me for any weirdness."

A soft red beam ran over his perfectly still form, clicking off with a small beep. Gaz stirred and Zim bolted to the lab. Once there he could again talk more normally.

"COMPUTER! RESULTS!"

"Increased flow of emotions…"

"Yeck," Zim made a face.

"… your Pak has allowed for an emotion called affection or attraction."

Zim gasped in horror, "I really am defective! Computer! Can the problem be fixed?"

"Only the Control Brain can access that area."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." The computer sounded annoyed.

Zim was horrified, he couldn't possibly have these feelings towards the human worm-baby, could he? Could he?


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Gaz awoke to angry pounding on the door and a disguised robot cuddled up to her chest. Realizing immediately what was going on, she bolted off the couch and to the door, leaving a drowsy Gir groping for warmth.

Dib just might have gotten the scare of his life as his sister opened the door to his arch nemeses house with sleep-tousled hair and a murderous expression.

"Gaz! Oh thank goodness you're ok!" he nearly strangled her in a tight hug, which resulted in a near-miss punch from Gaz.

"Why is your head so big!" Gir looked up at Dib and proceeded to roll around the yard laughing.

"It's not!... ir!... gah!... Oh, where's Zim? I'm gonna kill him!"

"Right here." Zim stepped up beside Gaz in the doorway.

Gaz unconsciously fixed his wig, as he had put it on a little crooked. Zim's antennae tingled again, but he did his best to ignore it and focus on the angry creature in front of him.

"Gaz, he's an alien, get away from him!"

"I can do what I want, you can't boss me around you know. You're not my dad."

That seemed to hit a rather painful chord, which Zim took full advantage of, "Yeah, Dib-stink, you're not her dad."

He regretted the last four words as Gaz elbowed him sharply in the squeedly-spooch, sending him back several steps.

"Um… well," Dib looked hurt and confused. He wanted to protect his little sister, but she didn't want his protection, "should I tell Dad you won't be home for family night?"

She stilled, she had forgotten.

"We can go to Bloaty's Pizza, I still haven't officially decided yet and – "

"O.k." Gaz interrupted him, "I'll be home by five. Now leave."

With that she closed the door in her brother's face.

***************************************8**************************************

Dib ran frantically out the front door as Zim's ship landed on the street. He stopped and waited about ten feet away as a refreshed-looking Gaz in clean clothes stepped calmly from the cockpit, a disguised Zim stared at him blankly.

Gaz had managed to get Zim's base to construct a bathroom with running water for her. Zim had shuddered in disgust, but one murderous glare later he complied. It would have been unpleasant to be beaten to death by Dib's little sister.

As soon as she was out of the ship, Zim flew it back to his base. Gaz didn't wait for a response from her brother; instead she grabbed him by his black coat and dragged him into their house with surprising strength. An old man across the street blinked slowly and shrugged, kids these days with their flying cars, what next?

************************************8*****************************************

Though they had gone to Bloaty's Pizza like Dib promised, it was quite possibly the worst family night Gaz had ever experienced. First, they were out of her favorite topping, which sent her into a cold fury. Then Dib did the most horrifying thing yet, he told their dad about her hanging out with an alien.

"Your little foreign friend?" Profesor Membrane was just as oblivious to his surroundings as the rest of the humans, "Has my little daughter gotten herself a boyfriend already?"

Gaz was mortified.

"I see we must have 'the talk' sooner than I expected," he continued, oblivious to her expression of anguish, "Now, about the birds and the bees and how to have safe sex…"

Both teens sat mortified and disgusted across the table, didn't their dad know that they already had to sit through this stuff in school? Gaz feverously wished she had brought her GameSlave, and Dib for once wished he had kept his big mouth shut.

************************************8*****************************************

The following week was more awkward than usual between the siblings. Hearing about the facts of life from their father caused Gaz to become more violent towards Dib, so the male avoided her when possible, which was fine by her.

Gaz had been deeply disturbed by her father even thinking that she might be even thinking of doing THAT with anyone, much less the weirdo Zim. Besides, she distinctly recalled a time where the alien had been hit in the groin with a ball during recess in seventh grade and he looked around to see other guys coiled up in pain from such a hit before doing it himself. So she continued to sit with him at lunch and play her GameSlave while Zim tried to ignore Dib staring daggers at him across the room.

***********************************8******************************************

Friday rolled around again and Saturday brought with it a week off of Skool. There wasn't a holiday or anything, but neither the students nor the teachers complained. By Monday Gaz had had enough of dealing with her family. At noon she couldn't stand it anymore, they were all just so stupid!

She snuck past Dib in the living room and went around the side of the house to the garage where Tak's old ship lay hidden under a tarp. A couple years ago Gaz had reprogrammed it to only respond to her after Dib flew it through her window in the middle of the night. So she activated it with a touch of palm and was soon on her way to Zim's house.

Unsurprisingly, the base opened up the roof of its own accord and let her land her ship next to Zim's. She took the elevator to the ground floor.

"Hi scary lady!" Gir waved from the couch where he watched TV.

"Hey Gir." She didn't see Zim and continued down to his lab to see what he was up to, maybe if she were lucky he'd be working on something that could eat Dib's stupid brains.

As Gaz entered his lab unnoticed, Zim lifted his gaze from the newspaper and felt another new emotion run through his veins, pumping excess amount of blood to his cheeks.

Gaz eyed the tube attached to Zim's pak, the newspaper, and the darkening green of his cheeks, she raised an eyebrow, "what are you doing?"

His antennae twitched back nervously as he tried to hide behind his newspaper. This feeling of… embarrassment… was incredibly unpleasant. He decided to counter it with being boisterous.

"What? You filthy humans have to purge your filthy bodies of unusable substances too! Zim's way is much less disgusting!"

It took Gaz a full second to grasp his meaning before she burst into uncontrollable laughter, clutching the lab table to keep from falling over.

"It's not funny." Zim's cheeks colored even more. He glared at her.

She wiped moisture from her eyes, slowly regaining control of herself, wondering how she had lost control in the first place, he had just looked so… exposed. She nearly lost control again at the thought, but managed to say, "I'll be upstairs," before turning and walking out.

*************************************8****************************************

Zim entered the living room later with a defensive glare on his face. Gaz was playing a game of 'catch the peanuts' with Gir. Zim raised an eyebrow, his squeedly-spooch and antennae gave him weird sensations again, but they were much more pleasant than the embarrassment he had felt earlier. He was starting to think that some of these emotions weren't so bad after all.

Gaz looked up.

Gir screamed, "TACO!"

Zim suggested, "Shall we play the _Planetary Invasion_?"

Gaz nodded, they were close to beating the game and Zim was turning out to be an almost worthy opponent.

*************************************8****************************************

Three hours later her jaw fell open in surprise.

"VICTORY FOR ZIM!"

She chucked her controller at his head and was rewarded with a satisfying yelp, "Fine, but we're going to the mall, your dress is stupid, and I'm flying."

Zim gawked. He didn't know what to refute first. "My invader uniform is not a DRESS!"

"Uh huh, sure it isn't. Now come on." She grabbed the front of his uniform and dragged him to the middle of the floor. "Computer, take us to the ships."

Gir jumped up on the lift with them. Zim was shocked and confused into silence, his squeedly-spooch knotted up like the bit of his shirt that was crumpled in Gaz's tight grip.

"Put your disguise on."

He obeyed without complaint. She gave him a funny look, but made no comment as the three of them climbed into his ship.

"Eh?" He looked between Tak's ship and the human now sitting in the pilot's seat beside him. She glared and he shut up. That glare made his antennae tingle.

Packed into the tiny ship with the other occupants within such close range would have normally pissed Gaz off, but the lack of warmth from Zim's slightly cooler body temperature brushing up against her side wasn't activating her disgust response. As the ship rose into the air, she smirked evilly; oh she could have fun with this.

**************************************8***************************************

The evil smirk appeared once again as the sounds of Zim emptying his stomach in the bushes reached her ears. He hadn't taken the crazy flight to the mall too well.

"Let's do that again!" Gir giggled.

Zim emerged from the bushes looking tired and glaring as hard as he could at her smirk.

"I want tacos!" Gir screamed, pulling his master by the leash into the mall.

Gaz caught up to them at the taco stand. Gir was happily munching on a dripping taco.

"Let's try there first." She pointed to a dark store that blared loud music.

Zim grumbled, but followed her inside.

Several minutes later; "STUPID ZIPPER!"

Shoppers turned their heads towards the yell, but turned back at Gaz's death-glare.

"Need some help Zim?" She asked teasingly through the dressing room door.

A thunk, then, "No, no, Zim's got it."

A few seconds later and a somewhat cowed looking Zim emerged, "This feels weird." He scratched at the pants.

Gaz couldn't help it, she raked her eyes over his new outfit. The same old black boots, black jeans, a loose studded belt, reddish-purple shirt, and a black hoody. The only thing still off about the picture to her was those gloves he never took off.

"Hmm… take the gloves off."

"WHAT? NOOOO!" he screeched.

Against her better judgment, she shoved him backwards into the changing room, following him in and locking the door behind her. His uniform lay crumpled on the small bench.

"Why not?"

"Uhh…" He decided showing her was easiest and nervously glanced around the small space before sliding off his left glove, revealing green fingers tipped with small but sharp black claws.

Gaz nodded in understanding, his hands were not human enough to keep up the 'skin condition' lie. "Ok, put them back on."

Zim tried to relieve the awkward tension after sliding his glove back on, "How does Zim look?" he said almost teasingly, turning around.

"Maybe we can find a way to put your invader symbol on the shirt." Gaz suggested.

"That would be better wouldn't it?" He smiled.

After a sheepish look from Zim, Gaz grudgingly paid for the clothes and they started walking back to the ship hidden out behind some trees. Just around the corner of the side of the mall, they were jumped by a group of teens. Gaz recognized one as a new kid at their Hy Skool, he seemed to be the leader.

"Hey look, it's the freaky green kid!"

"Yeah, freaky green kid!" His two followers echoed.

Both Gaz and Zim looked unimpressed, which seemed to piss off the dumb thugs even more.

"Hey freak, how would you like me to cover that freaky green face of yours with all your blood and shove that stupid dress down your throat!"

"Like Christmas!" One of the cronies piped up.

The bully glared, but turned back to Zim, seemingly to forget that Gaz was there. He grabbed Zim by the uniform and slammed him against the wall, then proceeded to kick him hard in the middle. Something in the Irken's body gave a loud snap, followed by his scream of pain. Gaz, who would have normally allowed the bullies to beat up on the annoying alien, who might have even watched in cold enjoyment, felt something inside her twinge at the combination of the snapping and the scream. For the first time in her life she didn't want to watch someone being beaten senseless. She lashed out with no warning and great speed and punched the main bully to the side. Zim watched with pain and awe as the human girl beat up three males twice her size. She dislocated someone's shoulder, broke several fingers, a nose, and gave a swift kick to the groin of the last one to get up and run away.

She turned to Zim, face blank and hand covered in blood that was not her own. He stared up at her, eyes wide in admiration and squeedly-spooch twisting pleasantly despite the pain.

"What's broken?"

"My spine, but do not worry Gaz-human," He winced, talking was painful, "My pak will soon fix it and we may return back to my base."

Gaz lifted an eyebrow and sat down against the wall near his head. Why was she feeling pity towards him? She looked at him lying as still as possible breathing slowly, a small green stain had spread across the back of his uniform. His spine had broken through his skin? She nearly winced in sympathy before reminding herself that Gaz Membrane never did anything of the sort. She was a cold-hearted being who cared nothing for those around her. To keep the saying true, she avoided looking at the poor alien for a good twenty minutes before he was able to roll over and shakily get to his feet, hissing in pain.

"Let's go." He said.

She followed him back to the ship, watching as he limped. Again she was surprised by a pang of sympathy. Quickly sorting through her irritating emotions, she came to the conclusion that no one should be allowed to seriously injure Zim, except her. That still held up to her image as the bringer of doom.

*************************************8****************************************

Back at the base, Gaz had just finished off the last of her pizza, Gir had happily eaten the other half, and Zim sat munching on a sandwich with the Irken symbol on it.

"Where does it all go?" Gaz stared at Gir.

"Huh?" Zim looked up.

Gir decided to answer her himself, "WHY IS THE PIZZA ANGRY?" He grabbed his stomach and belched up a large mound of chewed slop.

"That's disgusting Gir," Zim understated, "Clean that up."

"YES SIR!" He proceeded to roll around in it.

Gaz almost gagged and Zim sighed, he couldn't have them both vomiting all over his floor, "Computer! Take this mess down to the lab and clean it up!"

The floor around the gleeful Gir dropped down below and was replaced. Gaz wished her house could have done that when Dib had gotten the flu and vomited all over the floor.

The human and Irken sat for a moment in silence.

"Why don't you go put your new clothes on?"

"Ok." He grabbed the bag and headed down to his personal room.

When he reemerged a few minutes later, Gaz looked up from her GameSlave. Her character swiftly died, but she hardly took notice. The alien had completely dropped his disguise and in that short time put the invader symbol on his shirt. 'That outfit really accents his eyes' she thought, 'wait. Where did that come from?' She continued to watch him in silence as he made his way to the couch and sat right in the middle, switching on the TV to some mindless sitcom that wasn't even funny.

Zim didn't seem to notice as Gaz couldn't stop staring. He actually looked more normal with the new clothes, even without the lacking disguise. Her eyes traveled up to the top of his head where one of the thin black antennae twitched lightly, held at a lazy angle. 'I wonder…' without much further thought she found herself leaning over and reaching out with one hand towards the inhuman appendage.

Zim didn't notice what she was doing until it was too late.

She clasped the antennae and slid it through her fingers.

Zim's world exploded, he screamed and fell on his side, every nerve standing on end as wave after wave of pleasure traveled from his antennae to his toes, knotting up his squeedly-spooch and speeding up his heart so much he thought he'd burst. His body went rigid then limp.

Gaz watched the proceedings with surprise, but it soon turned to smug as she waited for the twitching and clenching and unclenching of his hands to stop. He moaned, eyes still shut tight. After a few more quiet moments where all that could be heard was the Irken's loud breathing, he slowly opened his eyes to look into Gaz's smirking face in confusion. He made a small groan as he got up. His muscles were sore! Not stopping to think about what just happened, and brain too addled to think about much of anything, Zim teetered off to the elevator.

"Computer, take me to the lab." Even his voice was a bit slurred.

The moment that she was sure he was out of hearing range, Gaz burst out laughing, a mixture of amusement and evil intent in the sound.

"I could so use this."

*************************************8****************************************

Author's note:

I apologize for this taking so very long, this is the closest I've ever come to writing a more adult/older teen scene and it took forever!

Tell me if you think that this is too graphic to be deemed suitable for teens. I'm kinda a bad judge of such things because I've been reading adult science fiction since seventh grade.

Next chapter could be a while as well; I'm trying to work more on my own original story.


	4. Chapter 4

Zim didn't even notice Gaz leave in Tak's ship as he was far too engrossed in having the computer do a complete scan of all his internal and external systems trying to find out what had happened to him when the human female fondled his antennae. Just thinking about the incident made him shudder in both disgust and pleasure.

"Are you finished yet?" He asked the machine in irritation.

"Processing."

He could have sworn that the computer was trying to mock him by taking longer than was necessary. Yawning, he felt his eyes drifting closed of their own accord. As far back as he could remember he had never felt anywhere near this exhausted, he had always taken the required three hours of sleep once a week by having his Pak simply induce it with the right chemicals, never before had those chemicals not been consciously controlled. To make matters worse, his whole body ached in a strange way as if he had just swum a mile in paste.

"Zim will go rest and be back to check on the results later." He suppressed another yawn.

There was no response from the temperamental computer.

The green alien turned and shuffled slowly to the elevator and was taken to his room. Once there he headed straight for the only furniture in the room, a somewhat large bed covered in red sheets with a black invader symbol in the middle. Flopping down face-first, he was asleep in seconds.

******************************************8****************************************

"MASTA MASTA MASTA! MASSSTAAAAA!"

Zim slowly opened his eyes so he could better aim his fist at the offending robot jumping on his back, who subsequently went flying across the room to smash against the wall before getting back up ant teetering around in a daze.

"The room is a big swirly pop!" Gir cried gleefully and began to enthusiastically lick the walls.

Zim moaned, but pushed himself up. 'How long have I been sleeping?' he asked himself. Wandering back into the lab, he asked the computer the same question.

"You slept eight hours, sixteen minutes, and fifty seconds."

"WHAAAT?" He screamed, "I have never slept so long in my LIFE! Tell me! What did the Dib-sister do to me last night!"

"Uh… well…"

"Spit it out!"

"She… uh… you… well, the pleasure sensors in your brain were forced into overdrive, completely overwhelming your nervous system and causing a… umm…"

"A what?" Why couldn't the stupid computer just say it already?

"The closest analogy seems to be the human orgasm."

Zim was silent for a moment. "Eh?"

The computer somehow managed a sigh, and pulled up a definition on the screen. Zim quickly scanned it and his face of mild confusion turned into disgust.

"Yuck! That cannot be right! I am not a filthy human worm-creature, there is no way I can experience anything like this orangeism you describe. You must be mistaken." He crossed his arms in defiance.

The computer made to attempt to correct his mispronunciation, "My scans are correct, and so is my analysis."

"Phah!" Zim tentatively reached up and brought a finger to one of his antennae. No change. He tried petting it with his finger. Still no change. He then braced himself and tried stroking it as Gaz had. No change.

"Hmmf! Then how come nothing is happening now?" He spoke in a mocking tone, but silently pondered the question himself.

"Perhaps it takes a female?"

"Nonsense." He waved it off, "I have gotten into fights with females who have pulled on my antennae plenty of times."

Again the computer sighed, "Maybe you are attracted to this human female?"

"NO!" He retorted a little too fast, "It's just my Pak malfunctioning! That's it!"

"Yeah, right."

"SHUT IT!" He yelled and turned to stomp off, taking the elevator up to his ship. Maybe some tinkering would clear his head.

Once up there, he noticed that Tak's ship was no longer in his base. He shrugged, 'I guess the Gaz-human has left,' he thought, 'Pity'. Zim was looking forward to her keeping Gir occupied while he did other things. Playing video games with her was fun, the way she could destroy the most powerful opponents in only a few minutes, the way her fingers moved with deadly accuracy on the controller, the way her skin shone with the bright red blood of the bully by the mall, and that glare that could put out a sun… wait just a minute! What was he thinking? The Irken shook his head violently. He. Did. Not. Feel. Attraction. To. The. Human. Female. No. No way. Never Ever. Her amber-colored eyes looking him over in his new clothes, the small smile she had given him.

"NNNOOOOOOOO!" He wailed out loud, and silently wondered what she was doing.

****************************************8******************************************

The youngest member of the Membrane household woke up and stretched lazily, pleased that her brother had managed to not burn down the house overnight while trying to rewire his surveillance cameras over the belt-sander in the garage.

Her moment of tentative happiness was short lived however as the loud thumping of her brother's large feet down the hallway and his voice interrupted the quiet.

"I did it! I did it! I finally got footage of bigfoot! He's real! Now everyone will see that I wasn't lying! I have proof! Proof! I –"

Thunk. Bump. Bump bump bump.

Scrunch!

"Dammit!"

Her father's voice could now be heard from the kitchen, "My poor insane son, someday I will figure out how to fix you, but for now… breakfast!"

Gaz groaned. Just another typical morning. She briefly wondered what a typical morning was like at Zim's house, but brushed away the notion at the thought of Gir. With that crazy robot, nothing was typical. She sat up and got dressed. It only took her three minutes to dress, brush her hair and teeth, and apply a small amount of waterproof makeup, but by the time she got downstairs Dib had finished his breakfast and was moping over his broken tape. Professor membrane was still in the kitchen, but took no notice of Gaz as she made her to the cupboard to grab the box of cereal. She shot an annoyed glance at her father, he somewhat greeted Dib but didn't even seem to know that she existed half the time! Grabbing the cardboard box, she froze. It. Was. Empty.

"DIIIIIIBBB!" She hollered, "You are so dead!"

He took no notice as she slammed the box in the trash and turned to her father.

"Hey dad, I need to make some toast for breakfast because Dib ate all the cereal."

"Uh huh," He nodded absentmindedly, "Just a moment daughter, I am performing important science! on this machine and its functions!"

The toaster exploded, spraying shrapnel that managed to miss the two humans standing in the room.

"Grrrrrr!" Gaz growled. Today was not going well at all. She made do with a few pieces of bread with butter smeared on them, not something she terribly enjoyed. After the explosion her father had mumbled something other than an apology and whisked away to his lab.

Then when she was beginning to think she might at least eat her breakfast in peace, Dib walked into the room and took a seat at the table, rambling as usual.

"I really had him Gaz, I really did this time. I was so close, so close! If I just hadn't tripped…"

"That's nice." Gaz stuffed the rest of a slice of bread into her mouth and tramped up the stairs to her room. She could still hear Dib's annoying voice through the closed door. Pulling out her GameSlave she zoned out everything but the sounds of vampire pigs being remorselessly slaughtered. Just as she had relaxed into the game and was about to finish the level, the screen suddenly went black and the little green light turned off. She froze. No. Way.

Her following roar of frustration shook the house and sent a small flock of pigeons a block away into frantic flight.

A frenzied search of the house later and her frustration only grew, there were no extra working batteries in the whole house! Dib had been watching TV by actually getting up and pressing the buttons! The small reactors within her stuffed animal robots weren't compatible with the GameSlave. She would have to walk to the store.

Dib barely got his mouth open before Gaz promptly stated "Batteries." And slammed the front door after grabbing a light-weight coat.

He sighed, at least she wasn't going to Zim's.

*****************************************8*****************************************

Her trip to the video game store was even worse than her morning.

As she was walking through the downtown part of the city, it seemed that for every street she had to cross she missed the walk signal by less than three seconds and had to wait several minutes to cross. Then at one intersection she had made it halfway across when an old lady in one of those big red scooters ran over her foot. Gaz bit her lip to both keep from yelping and pushing the 300-pound idiot into traffic. The lady continued on without even noticing. With her foot throbbing, Gaz continued several more blocks, and at a particularly long wait for the light to change a group of seven young men crowded onto the curb, several making contact with her personal space, all smoking and laughing and jeering loudly at other young women walking by. She clenched her fist and breathed as little as possible, knowing that if she tried anything here, that cop on the other corner would see and probably arrest her. They wouldn't have fresh batteries in jail.

After what seemed like hours, the light changed and she was able to sprint away from the obnoxious losers. She was forced to slow down and catch her breath next to a TV store several blocks later. Looking up at the screens, she scowled. On half the TVs, the President was having a live filming of him hosting a tea party for a group of kindergarteners from an all-girls Christian school. On the other half were live broadcasts of the ongoing war in Iraq.

Children were getting killed and the President was having a tea party?

"Disgusting." Gaz mumbled.

When she finally got to the video game store her ears were bombarded with the sound of a thousand cats wailing, sirens going off, and nails on a chalkboard. At least, that's what the voice of the young woman behind the counter sounded like to Gaz.

"…I know!... Hahahahahaaa! That's so true!... he did what?... she did it?... you too? Tell me!...uh huh…."

"I need to buy these." Gaz placed the batteries on the counter along with a twenty-dollar bill.

"OH MY GOD! NO WAY!... was it good?... ooooooh!... hold on a sec, I think I've got a customer." She paused to scan the barcode and punch some stuff into the cash register and process the money, handing Gaz the change without a glance, "Way to go you!... well duh! Who wouldn't?... uh huh….."

Gaz slammed the door as hard as she could on the way out. Why was everyone being such an idiot today? She looked around at the mobs of people walking past her and the word 'filthy' came unbidden to her mind.

Then it felt as if a bucket had been dropped on the world. Water gushed from the sky so suddenly it was as if Zim had thrown another water balloon at the planet, but one glance up at the dark clouds covering the once sunny sky told her it was just the weather. She was soaked through in seconds.

Humans scurried like rats around her as she stepped out to the curb and waved at the nearest taxi. Anger bubbled up as it drove right past her, spraying muddy water down the front of her clothes, and stopped a few feet down for a tall woman wearing a big yellow sweater and with the most horrifying face of running makeup Gaz had ever seen in her life. 'Filthy and hideous and stupid' she thought.

Gaz Membrane imagined what it would be like to watch all the idiots around her scream in pain, writhing on the ground, being forced to create new and better Vampire Piggy Slayer games. She imagined taking out Dib's vocal chords and punishing her father for leaving them to fend for themselves emotionally by placing him in solitary confinement without any of his precious science! She imagined bringing a dark layer of doom to the whole doomed planet and laughing from a viewpoint where she could see the whole of the Earth tremble beneath her wrath. A flash of Zim standing beside her in glory had her reeling back to reality with a start. When did Zim factor in to this? She thought about it for a bit, and came to the conclusion that his alien technology could be the thing she needed. Again though, she found herself thinking of those eyes and the way his cooler temperature didn't bother her… her chest felt funny and warm as she thought about the sight of his bare claws and touching those smooth antennae… Whoah! 'Pull yourself together!' Gaz ordered her brain, 'I am NOT a dumb hormone driven teenager!' But he had such a nice small smile and in those black clothes…

'Ok,' she admitted to herself, 'maybe he isn't all that repulsive. At least I can say I'm not falling for some stupid jock, or some dumb human. We do share similar views of the human species. He's not entirely annoying all the time. Plus, he's kinda cu – ' She stopped her train of thought right there and refused to think any further on the subject, choosing to replay how she was going to enslave the human race and punish all those that have done her wrong.

She began walking towards the only person on the planet with the technology to carry out her plans.

******************************************8****************************************

Author's note: I guess this is yet again another cliffhanger. I'll let you see Zim's reaction in the next chapter, I promise! It just might take a while…

Woo! Lots of mushy thoughts mixed in with the evil ones in here! That was quite interesting to write. Trying to keep Gaz completely in character and still have her eventually fall for Zim is turning out to be a bit tougher than I thought.

I know a lot of you out there have Dib be the overprotective and loving older brother, but for how I want this story to end it just doesn't really work having that sibling bond thing going on, so in this story Gaz really has to not like her brother, sorry.


	5. Chapter 5

"Zim."

Moments ago the computer had informed him of the human's entrance into his base. He had purposely not gone up to greet her in order to attempt to avoid his malfunctioning body's reaction to her. Unfortunately he knew deep down that if she wanted to talk to him nothing in the universe could stop her.

Now he looked upon her soaking form stepping out of the elevator into his control room. From his vantage point of the chair he could see the look of absolute doom on her slightly downturned face. The squishing of her shoes across the floor hit Zim's internal ears like tsunamis and each droplet of water falling from her hair resounded off the floor like a clap of thunder in tune with the Irken's pounding heart. As she neared him, she looked up and he shuddered in fear and… something else that he didn't want to think about. When her amber eyes locked onto his and her hand reached for the front of his shirt, he had to hold back a whimper of fright and pent-up emotion.

"You're going to help me enslave the humans." Gaz stared hard into the face of her brother's enemy who now cowered before her and sizzled under the few drops of rain from her hair. In his eyes she saw fear, which pleased her, but there was something else… admiration?

She shoved him back down into the chair and straightened to regain her personal space.

"Uh… uh…" Zim found himself speechless in front of this dark creature, he couldn't tear his eyes away from her, and his plastered-down antennae tingled like never before.

"Do I have to repeat myself?" Her tone suggested that doing so was not an option.

"N-no. Of course Zim will assist you in this endeavor, dark goddess."

A raised eyebrow, "What did you call me?"

"GAZ! GAZ! Don't kill Zim! Don't kill Zim!" He tumbled out of the chair and cowered on the floor, eyes closed, images of her hands dripping in green blood flashing across his vision.

He waited.

"You called me by my name."

He peeked open an eye to see her smirk and relaxed the tiniest bit.

"Good." She said, then bent down and lightly brushed the back of her fingers over his antennae.

Zim shudder and moaned in pleasure, closing both eyes and stretching out on the floor. The sensations were not as sudden or extreme as before, but oh! Did it feel good!

"Againnnnn…" He hissed and tilted his head towards her.

"Hah!" She scoffed and turned.

As she stepped towards the elevator to head to the lab, she heard Zim's low moan of frustration and longing from behind her. 'It's just funny,' she told herself, ignoring the tingling of her fingers and the slight quickening of her heart, 'nothing more.' Forcing her eyes forward, she stepped into the elevator.

"Computer, lab."

**********************************************8************************************

Several minutes later, a shaken and cautious Zim entered his lab to find Gaz waiting semi-patiently for him.

"Took you long enough." She stated, face unreadable.

Zim nodded silently in response and waited awkwardly a few steps from the elevator, absently rubbing his arm and twitching his antennae.

"I have a plan," Gaz finally spoke, then gritted her teeth and looked away, "but I need your help to pull it off."

******************************************8****************************************

"That. Is. INGENIOUS!" Cried Zim in delight, "Why did Zim not think of that before!"

As Gaz had told him her plan, the alien slowly lost his sheepishness and replaced it with maniacal glee.

"We must start right away!" He rubbed his hands together in excitement.

"Whoa, hold on," Gaz interrupted his scheming, "I have to make sure that Dib doesn't find out anything. We have the rest of the week to get as far along as we can, but in order to keep my brother off our backs I need to spend some time at home tonight and tomorrow morning in order to set up something to keep him occupied for a couple of days. You can go ahead and dust off the space station, but nothing else until I get back, got it?"

Zim's stance deflated, "Nothing? I cannot even se-"

"No." It was a clear threat.

He ducked his head in compliance, but lifted it back up and perked his antennae as she turned and started towards the lift, "Leaving so soon?"

"I think a couple of hours was enough time to get some batteries." She smirked and held up her GameSlave.

Eyes wide, he nodded in understanding and watched her leave, pausing a moment to think about how well those black clothes accented her purple hair. 'Gah!' he thought, 'stop it!'

Now a bit flustered, he commenced to cleaning up the space station that had been out of use for years.

******************************************8****************************************

Lucky for Gaz it had stopped raining by the time she left Zim's house, giving her an alibi for being gone so long.

"Hey Gaz, where were you? Why were you gone so long? Are you ok? Did Zim try to kidnap you?" Dib pelted her with questions the moment she entered the front door.

"Batteries." She repeated herself, "It rained for a bit and I waited it out in a coffee shop."

Dib glanced out the window as if to confirm this, when he turned back to where his sister had been, she was gone and he heard her bedroom door close. He shrugged and continued to watch an old recorded episode of Mysterious Mysteries.

Gaz sighed as she entered the sanctuary of her room. Guard drones disguised as toys stared at her comfortingly from the surfaces of the furniture. She pulled out her GameSlave and stared at the blank screen for a good three minutes before closing it and setting beside her on the bed. She didn't feel much like playing it just then. Reaching under he bed, she pulled out a laptop and opened it, logging in with a thirteen-letter password that her brother would never guess. Then she dug into the Internet, looking for a good distraction for her brother.

A few hours later, she had it. A creature called a penanggalan, a type of not-dead vampire found in Malaysia that was rumored to prey on mothers and children. There was no way Dib would give up the chance to see one of these flying around with only a head, lungs, stomach, and intestines! Now all she had to do was make it seem like he came to the finding on his own…

Sneaking into her brother's room, Gaz was able to quickly and efficiently break into his computer (seriously, why would he think that "Zim=dead" was a good password?). She wasted no time in subtly implanting several 'Easter eggs' that would cause a fake page on the penanggalan to pop up when going through the Swollen Eye's website. The trap was set, now all Dib had to do was spring it and Gaz would be free for a week to do as she pleased.

She left his room without a trace of her ever being there and headed casually down the stairs to grab a bite from the kitchen.

As usual, her father was not home.

"What are you doing?"

She inwardly growled; he was so nosey! "Getting something to eat. Something wrong with that?"

"No, no. Just wondering."

"Yeah, well stop."

That ended the conversation as Gaz silently cursed when she remembered there was no cereal to snack on and made herself a cheese sandwich instead. Then she went and plopped herself down next to her brother on the couch and chewed silently, half watching the Mysterious Mysteries special on the Ogopogo, a Canadian lake monster. All the photos were obviously either fakes or pictures of waves made by a boat. She rolled her eyes. Dib sat entranced.

Later that night, after yet another dinner with the floating computer screen that was their father most of the time, Gaz lay awake on her bed. For once she wasn't trying to zone out the world but was listening to her brother in the other room. He was typing on his computer and mumbling to himself.

Then she heard a gasp, followed by, "Wow! I have to see this!... Malaysia? Oh well… I guess Zim hasn't done anything in a while… I do have a couple of days before school… dad isn't going to be home..."

She could barely make out that last part as he trailed into more mumbling, but she let out a rare full-on smile at her ceiling. Perfect. Revenge was as good as hers.

The next day she bid a grunt of a goodbye to Dib as he bolted out the door with a suitcase, streaming garbled sentences around a piece of bread. As soon as she was sure he was completely gone, she rose from the kitchen table, washed her breakfast dishes, and went upstairs to grab her backpack and duffle bag.

She walked out into the sunlight with a small smile on her face. A freshman from school that lived in the area was walking on the other side of the street, saw the unheard of occurrence, screamed, had a heart attack, and never lived to tell the tale.

******************************************8****************************************

Zim had been busy in the time when Gaz was away. He had dusted every nook and cranny in the neglected crescent-shaped space station and repaired all the broken systems. By one o-clock in the morning he was bored. Really bored.

He tried watching the scary monkey show with Gir. Boring. He tried munching on some saved up Irken snacks. Boring. He tried catching pigeons and splicing them with rat DNA. Boring. Then as he was polishing the outside of the space station at three o'clock am, an idea popped into his head and he grinned. 'Gaz will love this,' he thought.

At about 8:00 in the morning, Gaz arrived in Tak's old ship and Zim's computer notified him of her appearance. He scrambled to put the finishing touches on his little project, and then ran to the teleporters to beam back down to his base.

Once on the main floor where Gaz was tentatively greeting his crazy robot, Zim took a moment to gaze unbidden at the female before she could take notice.

She wore her usual combat boots, black jeans accompanied by a chain of little skulls linking a belt loop with the wallet in her pocket, and a black tank top that left the pasty white skin of her shoulders open to the air. Zim admired how the skull necklace that had once hung halfway down her chest now hung at the dip of her collarbone on a little silver chain.

As she looked up from petting the disguised Gir on the head, Gaz caught Zim looking away in a hurry, a swathe of dark green coming out in his cheeks. Had he been staring at her in a more than blank-alien-stare way? Something inside her tingled pleasantly at the thought, but she pushed it down, not used to the strange new feeling.

"We can start now. Did you clean up the space station?"

"Oh yes," He smiled, "Zim cleaned and repaired the station hours ago." He motioned for her to follow.

Gaz was puzzled by his expression, he was hiding something, but she followed him anyway. She knew he knew that she wouldn't hesitate to kill him if he tried anything.

Zim led her on a complete tour of his space station, playing the proud tour guide. Gaz made mental notes of areas that needed improvement or complete overhauls.

The last room that Zim led her into was a workstation room full of various wires and pieces of Irken technology.

"And this," Said Zim with a flourish of his hand to the center of the room, "My gift to you."

Gaz raised an eyebrow and looked unimpressed at the very smug looking alien before her.

"So? What is it?"

Zim opened his eyes and let his antennae sag in disappointment.

"All I see it a weird metal bug." She stared at the dark purple thing that was a little bit bigger than her head.

Zim perked up. Of course she would have no idea what it was! "How silly of Zim," he said, "You need to try it on first to see its amazingness."

"What? But it doesn't have – whoa!"

She was cut off as Zim trotted over to the thing, picked it up, and brought it over to press up against her back. It immediately sent out metal arms that wrapped around her with two over her shoulders and four wrapped snuggly around her ribs. They shifted effortlessly as she breathed, allowing her to relax and slow down her panicked heart beat.

Zim grinned at her surprised expression to his gift.

"It is not quite as useful as a Pak, but is similar with controls that I have modified for the much simpler human mind." He ducked into her personal space just long enough to press a discrete button on one of the metal arms, then swiftly ducked back out of her reach.

She gave him a half-hearted glare, but was only minutely bothered by his proximity, focused instead on the strange device that had molded itself perfectly to her body and was now unfurling a screen in front of her with options printed in English.

"It took Zim a good ten minutes to get it to translate Irken into your human language." Zim noted as he watched her eyes scan the screen.

"Dib's been trying to do that for years." Gaz smirked. She made note of some of the things the screen displayed as a default; the quality of the atmosphere, the time of day it was in the time zone where she lived, and several icons that she assumed led to different screens.

Zim watched with curiosity and slight amusement as the human played around a bit with his technological creation. She hadn't even seen the best part yet.

She tapped the little humanoid icon to find a complete real-time analysis of her health, complete with heart rate, brain activity, and internal organ function. Another icon of a grid and a tap later had her new machine scanning the alien in front of her and informing her of his species and a full scan of his body much like the screen for hers.

Before she had much time to study his physiology, Zim cleared his throat to get her attention, pointing to another button on one of the robot arms over her ribs, "Put that away and press this one."

She paused for a moment before pressing the first button to retract the little screen, then looked a little suspiciously at Zim for another moment.

He shifted under her glare, but managed to keep calm eye contact, convincing her of his honesty.

She pressed the button.

With a whir the machine was sent into a flurry of motion, unfolding itself around her like armor. She watched in amazement as gloves with spikes on the knuckles chunked down over her hands, strong black and purple metal similarly encased her boots adding several sharp spikes to those as well, and the modest breastplate clanked into place, making her look just a tad bit more masculine. She wondered why her head was left free until Zim once again leaned into her space to press another button up by her neck. A strange purple bubble encased her head before disappearing.

"What was that?" She asked, squinting.

"Space helmet." Zim grinned at her naivety. He poked at it and she once again saw the light purple shimmer and disappear.

"I get it," She said, "Cool." Then a surprising realization struck her, "It's probably the nicest thing anyone's done for me since…" She glanced at where her necklace was.

Zim followed her gaze and swallowed, blushing slightly at the thought that he had been the only one since her… well, in a long time, to give her something that she really liked.

She surprised both of them when she deactivated the space suit to its backpack form and gave Zim a swift hug, backing off just as fast and avoiding eye contact.

Zim thought he saw a light blush tint her cheeks for a moment, but couldn't be sure as her smell was clouding all his other senses and every muscle in his body felt like it was on fire.

Before an awkward silence could set in, Gaz gave the stunned alien a deft punch in the arm, which knocked him from his daze and elicited a small yelp.

"Come on," She said, "We have work to do."

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Author's Note: Yup, big step in their relationship here. Sorry that this chapter didn't progress the back plot all that much, It's a bit of a slow plot and I'm trying to practice my descriptive writing.

I'm guessing that many if not most of you don't know what a penanggalan is, I didn't know of them myself until I read the Hellboy comic containing one. I like the bit where they have to soak their intestines in vinegar in order to fit them back in their bodies

Also, if you are at all confused about Zim's sudden easy almost servitude like attitude towards Gaz, I though that since he was grown to serve the Tallest and they abandoned him, that he might be sort of subconsciously looking for new leadership. I dunno, maybe I'm just making dren up to explain away things I had to slightly change about the characters XD


	6. Chapter 6

Author's note: I apologize once again for taking so long in updating, school and other such life stresses has been preventing me from writing and I'll probably regret not doing my homework right now tomorrow, but I have the need to write…. So yeah…

Here goes.

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The pair worked in unison, Gaz carefully instructed Zim in pulling out wires and tubes and helped him shove or weld them in place. Occasionally she would draw a basic design plan down on a piece of paper and the alien would fill in the details with whatever his advanced technology could do. Their movements began to follow a kind of rhythm; she would pull down a tube, he'd attach it, he'd hold up a panel, she'd rewire the circuits. It was like a cheery 80's montage scene.

"Gir, Stop playing that stupid music! This is not an 80's montage you know!" Gaz growled out from under a console in the station's control room.

"Awww." The little robot was dismayed, but complied and then wandered out to the transporters to head back down to the planet.

"Good riddance." Zim spoke from his perch on the ceiling. Using his Pak's mechanical legs, he crawled down to stand next to where the human girl was watching Gir leave, "Gaz? I require your assistance on a particularly troublesome power cluster."

She turned her gaze to him and nodded before sliding out from under the console, standing and lightly brushing off her jeans. Zim took a step towards her, knowing very well that she would probably not like what he was going to do next, but that it had to be done if he was going to get this place finished to go through with her plan. A small part of him felt almost guilty, knowing that his body would enjoy the experience. He rallied his courage and reached out to grab her around the waist.

"Wh-what are you doing?" She was shocked by how close he had gotten all of a sudden and instinctively her hands balled in to fists.

Zim cringed, but didn't back off, his squeedly-spooch felt warm. He explained, "I must carry you up to the power cluster."

"Oh, right," She felt the beginning of a blush and turned away from his face, "Lets go then."

Her insides fluttered as the alien pulled her flush against him, hand gripping just under her 'Pak', and hoisted them both up to the trouble area. She was further flustered as he adjusted them so his Pak's legs braced him against the wall that curved to ceiling with his legs braced against the wall so that Gaz was essentially sitting on his lap. She pushed back the blush that was threatening to cover her face and focused on the task ahead of her.

Zim also struggled to hold back the thrumming of his squeedly-spooch and the more than pleasant tingling of his antennae. He had never been this close to anyone he wasn't fighting before, and having so much of this female pressed against him was incredibly hard to ignore. Forcing himself to keep his eyes firmly on the confusing knot of wires above him, he explained to Gaz what each one went to.

"Hmm… it's all tangled up." She observed.

"Thank you, president of the known." The reply was sarcastic.

She turned her head slightly down to meet his gaze, "That's 'captain obvious'."

Their faces were a mere six inches apart, there was a brief awkward silence. No one moved. Then Gaz whipped her head back up to the wires, and the moment was lost, but she couldn't help but lean a fraction more towards Zim's chest, hiding the shift with trying to reach a different angle in the wires overhead. He smiled lightly, welcoming the contact.

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Several hours later, Gaz had to stifle a large yawn. She brought up the clock on her alien backpack; 10:23pm. Time to turn in for the night. Looking over to Zim, she watched him for a moment. He really was alien. On he worked, no sign of growing tired, the contented look on his face made her draw parallels to when she was in what she called "The Zone" while playing video games. After a moment of her standing there, his antennae twitched and he looked up at her questioningly.

"Something wrong?"

She sighed, guessing what was coming in response to her next words, "It's late down there," she gestured out the window, "I need to eat and get some sleep."

Zim felt a scoff and an insult to the human species welling up inside him, but another look at her made him shove it back down. She truly did look exhausted, and without – dare he think it – her plan, he would be without purpose. He nodded, "Zim can keep working."

"No."

Her quiet answer surprised him.

"I –," She began again, "It would be great if we could just hang out for a bit, eat dinner."

Now he was more shocked than surprised. She wanted to spend more time with him? His insides did a quick flip and he nodded. What was this human doing to him?

Not too much time later, they found themselves sitting across the table from each other. Gaz was eating Bloaty's and Zim scarfed some Irken snack. Only the sounds of munching interrupted the silence. They avoided eye contact.

Zim was more confused than ever, she had practically invited him to eat this meal, but then seemed to ignore him. He could not figure her out. Gaz noticed him looking at her quizzically.

"If you keep that up, your face will freeze like that." She commented dryly.

"Eh?"

"Nevermind," She searched for something to talk about, "So… we're set to install the satellite dishes tomorrow?"

Zim nodded, "Yes, and then the final touches to the speaking platform must be completed."

"Then I can initiate Planetary Takeover." She smirked.

Zim grinned, "And we can rule this FILTHY ball of stink and DIRT! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA - "

His laugh was cut off with a swift clout to the head from Gaz, but from the small smile on her face he knew it wasn't serious. Rubbing his slightly sore antennae, he gave a small smile right back.

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Zim sat quietly on the floor of his living room, watching the dark beauty in front of him sleep. Her face was so calm in slumber, nothing like the hateful glare he still knew best. Zim thought about her almost every minute now. The cold dark fury in her eyes when she was pissed, the small glint of joy when she smiled just for him, the way she had not flinched away from his claws like any other idiotic human stink monster would. His eyes traveled to her unique purple hair, fingers itching to touch it but knowing that if he woke her up she would not hesitate to tie him up in the shower and turn on the water. One of her hands was slumped over the edge of the couch, when it twitched his antennae buzzed with remembered feeling. The Irken male realized that he now craved her touch, was perhaps even addicted to it. Scooting closer, his face was now a mere foot away from Gaz's. Gaz, he rolled the name around his head silently, deciding that he liked it, it would make a great invader name, unlike Dib. Even in his head he spat out the name with hatred. But how could something related to the Dib-stink be this wonderful? The urge to touch her grew, and soon enough he found himself sliding a glove off and reaching towards purple hair that looked incredibly soft. Just before making contact he paused and surveyed her still features, still no movement. As his clawed fingers brushed lightly over her head his whole body tingled with sensation. Oh, Irk! What this female did to him was amazing!

With a sigh, Gaz's serene expression twisted into a slight frown. Zim panicked, within a second he was across the room and peeking out of the garbage can. He held his breath for what must have been a minute but felt like an hour before he was sure that she wouldn't wake. Letting out the breath in a silent sigh, the Irken whispered a command to his computer and was lowered into his lab. Obviously he needed to drown his thoughts in tinkering. He grinned as he thought of another something he could build for Gaz, maybe it would earn him anther hug? Or even better…?

Antennae tingling, he got to work.

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Gaz awoke to complete silence. Ok, a dog a few blocks away barked, but otherwise it was completely silent. That was the first thing she noticed, the second was that Gir was once again snuggled up against her abdomen in his dog costume, curled up with a contented smile on his face. Why he liked her so much, she could not fathom, but she knew that it was in her (and everyone else's) best interest if she didn't wake him.

Being extra careful, she swapped her body heat with the pillow her head had lain on and padded silently to the kitchen where she stuffed a leftover piece of pizza in her mouth. From there she made her way to the elevator and down to Zim's lab.

He wasn't there.

"Zim?" She called.

Nothing.

"Computer, where's Zim?"

"In the space station."

Her eyes narrowed, "We agreed that he wouldn't do any work without me."

The computer sensed the female's hands fisting and jumped in with a suggestion to avoid damage, "Uh, do you want me to put up a video-com link?"

Gaz didn't visually relax, but replied in a calm voice, "Sure."

A few buzzes and clicks later, the top of Zim's head was visible on the large screen.

"Zim." Her voice was cold.

"AHH!" He jumped away from the screen so his whole body was now visible, "Gaz! You're awake!... Um… it's not what it looks like." He looked sheepishly at her.

"What? You're not working on my plans while I'm not there?" Sarcasm.

"No, no I'm not." He stated in a very matter-of-fact voice.

Gaz gave him a questioning look, demanding an explanation.

"It's a secret Gaz… a surprise." His eyes narrowed in mischief.

She thought about marching up there and showing the egotistical alien just where he could shove his surprise when she remembered how cool the last thing he made for her was. Sure, it could have been a one time crazy random happenstance that she liked it, but it could also be that he genuinely just liked making stuff and was trying to keep her from sending him into a nightmare world of doom. Both possibilities seemed equally likely.

Zim shifted awkwardly in the drawn out silence as he waited for her response. He managed to finish the last details in the downloading and set up of his gift before she called, but he didn't want her finding out what it was until the proper time. He had it all planned out in his head. First they would finish work on the space station, then they would destroy the world, then he would present his gift, then she would hug him! It was the perfect plan, but it could be shattered in an instant if the human decided that she needed to know what it was now. He bit his lip and tried to stare at her pondering face with as little emotion as possible.

"Ok, whatever."

Zim nearly collapsed in a sigh of relief.

"But I'm coming up to start work, so you better have it all cleaned up by the time I get there."

Zim, ecstatic, saluted sharply and disconnected the communication almost before she could finish the sentence. He scrambled to put all the tools away and hide his modifications in their new storage locations inside the floor right under the large viewport that was also a giant screen.

He ran into the ship docking rom just as Gaz stepped out of the pod with her 'pak' already on and his base neatly retracted back into the little screw-like device from which it came, Gir followed close behind. "Zim is correct that the final stage of construction is the installation of the satellite dishes?" He asked, taking the house building device back and stuffing it in his Pak. Gir decided to take a nap in the corner.

Gaz nodded and activated her new space suit, "You got your suit?"

Zim grinned as he activated his own and followed Gaz to maneuver the small but bulky dishes out the airlock and in to position facing either the planet or other satellites at the right angle. Working independently and using their Paks to calculate the direction and angle, the duo was able to get the job done within several hours.

Next step, world domination.

Zim and Gaz stood in the middle of the observation/mission control deck, finalizing the calculations and exact timing of the takeover. Zim was getting anxious and was starting to rush through the math. Gaz noticed him making a mistake that could have ruined everything.

"Zim, that last calculation was way off, let me do the math."

"No, Zim's math is just fine!"

"No it's not. Let me do it." Now it was an explicit order.

Zim chose not to respond, instead continuing to work.

Now Gaz was angry. After all this hard work Zim was going to screw it all up? No way.

Suddenly, Zim found himself shoved roughly out of the way. Gaz quickly set the calculations right and finished the sequence entering it into the computer before leaning against the stand and giving a smirk to Mr. Know-it-all. Zim's eyes widened in fear as he saw Gaz accidentally press the button that he dearly hoped she hadn't noticed.

A look of confusing flashed across her face at his look of horror. She was thrown off balance by the console suddenly retreating into the floor and stabilized herself by grabbing Zim's shirt as she watched the unusual events unfolding around her.

All in the span of a few seconds, a couch popped up from the floor, followed by surround sound speakers, a subwoofer, and two video game controllers.

Zim winced as Gaz gasped in surprise and let go of his shirt to stare at the screen that now showed the selection menu for a wide range of video games including Vampire Piggy Hunter and Planetary Invasion 2.

He was shocked to suddenly find Gaz pressed tightly against him and made further speechless when he heard the grin in her voice.

"Thanks Zim."

Next thing he knew was that the amazingly soft skin of her fingers was rubbing up against his sensitive antennae. All he could think about was the pleasure and her smell overriding his brain and overwhelming his Pak with emotions. Before he knew it, his mouth was locked with hers and his bare hands were in her hair, pulling her even closer as she started to return the kiss. Great mother of Irk! His squeedly-spooch was on fire! He moaned into her mouth as he felt fingers brushing the base of his antennae, some ancient vestigial part of him had him starting to rub up against this human female who was causing him so much pleasure.

Gaz knew that if she didn't stop now, things would go much farther than she was currently comfortable with. The sensation of Zim's warm body up against hers was thrilling, but they had yet to destroy the world and she still wasn't sure why she had so suddenly become so attracted to this green alien. Somewhat reluctantly, she pulled away from him to find them both almost panting for air.

"Zim," she gasped, "Lets doom this puny ball of filth."

It took a moment for the haze of pleasure to lift enough for him to respond coherently, but when it did he grinned maniacally and called back up the control console which now displayed a whoppin' big red button.

Now Gaz grinned and placed her hand over the button.

Zim took one look at her truly evil smile and placed his hand over hers, shoving that button down.

With that, several nuclear missiles zipped from Russia to the United States and North Korea, destroying cities that contained a large amount of people, but no governing officials. Zim and Gaz sat back and watched with pride and exhilaration as the whole planet erupted in flame.

….

…..

….

…

"Let's roast some hamsters!" Gir giggled crazily, greatly amused by the fireball outside. What a great thing to wake up to.

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Author's note: That's the end! Finally! Ha! I win at creating a totally anti-climactic ending there with Gir. I hope you enjoyed it ;)


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